A little while ago I interviewed Al Carr, a singer-songwriter from the Castlemaine, Victoria, area who had released an album, his third, called The Right Dereliction (still one of the best album titles ever). Carr is now a member of a quartet called Bad Debts, along with fellow songwriters Pete Daly and Mitch Dillon, and Al Stanley on drums.
The band has an album, Under Kalimna Skies, due for release in July this year through Ragged Gum Records, and the first single is ‘Drivin’’, which is having its premiere here today.
The track draws on the band members’ influences – ranging from Americana to rock ’n’ roll via roots music – and was written by Dillon, who says it’s a ‘nostalgic look back, from a near future vantage point, on when we were free to drive our cars. When we were free to roll the windows down on a summer night and blast the Modern Lovers. When we were free to use vehicular methods on our arterials, instead of living in the perfect utopia we have created around us, in our futuristic bliss.’
Musically, the song is exactly what you’d want it to be if you were either nostalgic for a road trip or actually taking one in the here and now: it is rolling in pace while still having a driving rhythm (pun intended and also appropriate!), and there’s an almost giddy tone in the vocal that reminds us that sometimes it can be fun just to be on the move.
It also contains a promise of what might be under those Kalimna skies … and not too long to wait for the album’s release. You can spend that time, perhaps, on a long drive, with a certain new song on the playlist.
